Marina's place

As of yesterday Pe'Sla went back to its rightful caretakers.

Rapresentatives of The Great Sioux Nation and the Reynolds family signed the contract, the deal is done, Pe'Sla is safe.

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/tribes-reach-9-million-goal-and-purchase-sacred-site-pe-sla-146015

A Chinese cartoonist's opinion on the ongoing anti-Japanese demonstrations in China .

For obvious reasons the author of Hexie Farm is known only through his (her?) alias 'Crazy Crab'.

Patriotic turtles

The auction has indeed been cancelled (my guess is that they didn't want to face an outcry, in particular after Professor Anaya's words), but Pe'Sla has not been taken off the market.

The effort to secure it as a sacred site open to all the tribes who want to pray there is still going on, the petition is still open (and above 45,000 signatures as of now) , so is the IndieGoGo campaign , steadily approaching the 300,000 $ mark.

The risk now is that people believe that the danger is past, letting Pe'Sla slip into the shadow of 'past news' and abandoning the Oceti Sakowin to fight alone.

If you have any way of bringing the plight of Pe'Sla to the attention of the media (national or local, it doesn't really matter), please do so. I've just written to 'my' newspaper, if enough of us do this, Pe'Sla and the Oceti Sakowin won't be the next victims of public forgetfulness. 

The IndieGoGo campaign is still going, at the moment it has raised 211,168 US $.The promoters have decided to extend the fundraising deadline to try to reach their 1 million dollars target, but as of now the auction is STILL scheduled for this Saturday. If you have been thinking about contributing, now is the moment.

In other news the Rosebud Sioux tribe has allocated 1.3 million dollars to buy as much of Pe'Sla as possible (I'd like to point out that the Great Sioux Nation doesn't have a casino-based economy, setting apart that much is seriously going to hurt).

There might be some light in the distance: the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Professor James Anaya “urged today the United States Government and the local and state authorities in South Dakota to address concerns expressed by the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota peoples about an impending private land sale in the Black Hills region of the central-northern state, that will affect a site of great spiritual significance them” (quoted from the campaign updates), read more here

The auction, though, has neither been suspended nor delayed

If you can't do anything else, spread the word, please.

There is also this online petition I found today, asking that Pe'Sla be designated as historical landmark or nature preserve.

Since I first read about it a few days ago I've been following the 'Save Pe'Sla' IndieGoGo campaign, honestly with very mixed feelings:

Donations and support messages keeps coming in, true, but where is the public outrage at people scrambling to buy land that was stolen from them in the first place?

Where are all the advocates of religious freedom?
Where are all those guys and gals who went out of the movie theaters after seeing 'Dances with Wolves' declaring loudly that 'It is a shame how they were treated' and 'If it were for me...'?
Where are all the armchair warriors for minority rights?
Where are all the film-makers and writers that made millions off Native history and culture?
Where are all those who go 'Oh, their way of life and beliefs are so great, they are SOOO connected to the Earth, you know, I admire them a lot'?

I've seen more than one crowdfunding campaign for a videogame get overfunded by more than one million dollars in a few days, is justice less important than a videogame?

If you can't do anything else, just spread the world, there is still time if everybody does a little something.


My auction for Pe'Sla is still going on, see the last 4 posts in my journal.

Auspicious Chinese Patterns for the New Year

Another booklet-set of 20 original Chinese postcards



Auction runs till midnight GMT on Wednesday the 22nd

Please comment to place a bid

Payment via Paypal as soon as your bid is confirmed as the winning one.

The Pe'Sla Indie GoGo campaign

As you might have heard, the Lakota Sioux are trying to raise enough money to buy as much as possible of land they hold sacred, which is going to be auctioned off on August the 25th.

They have a IndieGoGo campaign going, I've contributed what I can but I'd like to do a bit more, so I'm auctioning off 4 sets of themed, original Chinese postcards, the auction will go on till Wednesday, midnight GMT, payment accepted via PayPal only.

I'll cover shipping everywhere in the world, each 20-postcard set will be in a different entry in my LJ, to bid please comment on the relevant entry, if you'd like to help but can't bid, please boost the signal.

First lot:

"Customs of Old Shanghai" 20 black-and white postcards, reproductions of paintings of the late Qing dinasty

Here is a sample image:



The poscards are glued together on one side and can either be detached and used or kept as a mini-artbook.